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By: Ian Essling
Northern Illinois University Professor David Sinason has a tremendous amount of experience to draw on when it comes to speaking on ethics. After all, with 35 publications to his name, Sinason is not a lightweight in the field of accountancy and business.
Hosted by the Waubonsee Business Club, Sinason gave a presentation on business ethics to an audience filled with business and accounting students, as well as numerous other guests who were interested in the subject. The presentation ran the gamut from employee behavior, executive policies, unethical clients and company regulations, to personal ethical decisions and moral values.
According to Sinason, "You really only own two things in your life: your education, and your values. Once you learn something, it's yours, [and] if you draw the line, and stick to it, no one can take your values from you. But you can still lose it." That is where morals and ethics comes into play, which is what the majority of the presentation centered around.
One of the major tenants of his presentation was what Sinason described as the "top-down" theory of company ethics, which states that employees are only as ethical as their employers.
"The tone at the top is the most important," Sinason explained, since ethics cascade down through a company or organization. As he stated, if the president is doing something unethical, it just makes it that much easier for someone else to break moral boundaries and justify it. If the management of a company is not obeying ethical standards, then rank and file employees will see no reason to do so.
One example he used was about employee parking. "If [a manager] tells an employee they have to park far away from a building in an 'employee parking' area, but they park right next to the building, how long will it be before the employees start emulating the manager and parking right up close?"
He went on to elaborate that this mantra is appropriate in many different settings both in and out of the workplace. The president of a company or college needs to give a positive ethical example to everyone working beneath them, and the same holds true for student-led organizations as well.
An important distinction he made was the scope of an ethical problem. Just because an ethical violation is small doesn't mean it should be ignored or forgiven easily.
According to Sinason, "Behind every small ethical program is a larger ethical problem waiting to happen." Ethical problems will only grow, and if an employee or manager's unethical behavior is not handled at a low level, it can quickly escalate into a large-scale problem.
Sinason said that it is very important to get ethical policies on paper. He said that often, companies have "informal policies," which he says will lead to "informal results."
"Talk is cheap; you have to get it in writing; put your code of ethics or code of conduct in the break room where people will see it every day," he explained. "Repetition is the mother of significance."
Employees who are deluged with company ethics on a non-stop basis will be less likely to commit unethical acts. Of course, while creating and posting company policies are important, the executives of the company have to "practice what they preach," or risk influencing their employees to follow in their footsteps.
During his presentation, Sinason also emphasized the importance of getting involved in student clubs and activities. "There is an awful lot of experiences that are not in the classroom," he said, "Corporations are looking for leadership and involvement, not just a good GPA."
Sinason's educational background includes a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Illinois, a bachelor's and master's degree in business administration from North Florida University, and a Ph.D in accountancy from Florida State.
Dan Gibbons, Assistant Professor of Accounting at Waubonsee, attended the program and thought that it was "terrific."
"He [Sinason] is a great presenter; I've never seen him do a bad job," he added.Gibbons also explained why ethics are extremely important for accounting and business majors. "When you get into your career, you will face ethical dilemmas. With a good foundation [in ethics], it makes it easier to make the right choice."
According to Gibbons, accountancy majors have ever more reasons to focus on ethics, because the newest CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exams have an ethics portion in the test.
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